Lockdown Diary - Saturday 29th August 2020

Usual start to Saturday: shopping and washing. 'Nuff said!

Tomorrow sons 1 and 2 are off to the Lake District with six of their mates to go walking and generally living the outdoor life. Good on them. They've done a pretty good job of getting organised on their own - son #2 even had a list!  Nevertheless I did help them out with a few things they'd not thought of or organised.  

Things are also getting real as far as son #3 and university are concerned: we've completed our ranked list of chosen arrival times to move him into his flat, so hopefully we'll get the date we've asked for - otherwise I may need to put in an urgent leave request!

Apart from moving in, we also need to work out what he needs in terms of cooking stuff, bedding, and most annoying of all, whether his laptop - which he hasn't used for ages - needs replacing.

It's not been a great day for getting washing dry as the weather can't seem to make up it's mind.  The BBC says the weather should be dry, but I don't think the weather has read the script.  

Son #2 went out to the cinema with a friend in the afternoon - they went to see 'Tenet', the new Christopher Nolan film, which looks rather good if perhaps a little mind blowing.  After son #2 returned home his verdict was that the film was really good, but he'd probably need to watch it again to work out some of the 'time'-related aspects. Sounds like my kind of film!

Somewhere amongst all the things I had to do or help my sons with, I managed to finish the novel 'Kindred' and also listen to an entire album, namely, 'Third/Sister Lovers' by Big Star. More on that later. 

From one film to another: it's film night again and, for the first time in a couple of weeks we were all present on a Saturday night, not least because sons 1 and 2 have to get up early tomorrow to head off North.  It was son #2's choice tonight and he chose 'You Were Never Really Here', which I'd never really heard of, and stars Joaquin Phoenix.

Yet again my sons have come up trumps - they certainly do seem to have good taste in films - and it was excellent: gripping and moving whilst at the same time being pretty brutal in places.  The acting, especially from Joaquin Phoenix, was really strong. It has something in common with another excellent film, 'Leon' (which stars Jean Reno), though the plot lines are completely different. One of my favourite lines spoken by Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) was: 'Do you know what paradise is? It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be.'

For years, since it first came out in 1975, I've been recommended or seen recommendations for the album 'Third/Sister Lovers', by Big Star. Somehow I've always resisted it and it's dropped down my list of priorities, forgotten until the next time it was recommended by someone else. Recently another recommendation came my way, which both resonated with me and matched the album's supposed qualities to how things are.

It's hard to choose a track from it, there are so many good songs, but at this precise moment 'Kanga Roo' is the track I'm going for. 

(N.B. On the album sleeve the track is titled 'Kangaroo', however all the stuff I've seen from the band lists it as I have above)

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